There was a designer, with an idea of making a 10L hunt. A hunt, that is not quite your usual freebie hunt with hundreds of stores, hours spent - and some wasted, just to be annoyed, lagged, and end up with a bloated inventory of things you might have not wanted to get in the first place, just to get to the end of the line.
So, taking that idea, we have organized this hunt, and came up with the idea of Vendor Support Month for the month of June.
Now.. As a content creator and designer, I know of the struggles to get attention, traffic, and a customer/client base. I enjoy giving to the community. We have all been new, and we have wanted to look a little better than the stock avatars that LL has given us. I understand times are hard, and not everyone can make enough money or just "pull some out" to spend on lindens to buy our creations. However, most designers rely heavily on the support and contribution of the people here in SL.
Second Life has become a platform for many creative aspects. We all enjoy them and we all have our favourite designers, hair stores, animation stores, script stores. As a whole, we as consumers and business owners make the SL economy WORK. It is just like real life. Sims do not run on creativity alone. Someone has to recieve the compensation. We all understand this as well as we understand paying rent/morgage in our real lives.
This notecard is not an attack on hunts, as stated many times before. And the Vendor Awareness Month is not designed to attack freebies in general, or any one person or organization. It's purpose is to instill hope and growth to the SL economy so that it will continue to thrive, and promote awareness to those who deliver the quality goods that we may take for granted every day.
We as designers wish to serve the consumer and more importantly, continue to serve. We enjoy the support and literally, some of us cannot live without it. Many of us use this platform as our singular source of income. Some of us have children. It's not a game when you deal with real obligations such as that. Some people work tirelessly on creating good, quality content just for everyone to enjoy. We don't ask for much in return.
A balance needs to be made. Grid Wide Hunts have snowballed out of control and no one is happy.So, as an alternative to the usual Grid-Wide hunt, we offer a little twist. To kick off the Vendor Support Appreciation Month, there will be a 10L hunt of 50 supporters who have agreed to display one quality gift to participants. No more running and searching for a box - this gift will be displayed in the open with an image of what is being presented, bringing the focus to the quality and display of the item, while allowing the customer to browse the rest of the store. Fact is, we want you to see our stores, sit and stay a while, check out our lucky chairs and maybe even get to know a few of us.
Moreover, these vendors will be compiled into a directory on a website http://vendorsupportmonth.blogspot.com/ . This website will show you the vendors participating, and a summarized list of the type of goods they produce. Consumers will be able to see what they are purchasing before they buy, and enjoy visiting possible new stores.
Basically, we want the same thing everyone does. Designers have as many horror stories as consumers do about the grid-wide free hunts. Content doesn't create itself. Designers barely have time to rise to the demand of discounted goods and 3-5 hunts a month and then still try and continue to produce the quality goods that we offer full price in our stores. We wish to offer a different way of approaching the generosity of vendors, without pushing them to close their stores or be forced to quit giving free or discounted gifts entirely. We wish to focus on the quality of the work, and bring value back into second life, before it diminishes completely. The 10L price for the hunt gifts will go towards helping our creators finacially and serve as encouragement, letting them know their work and effort is appreciated.
So.. In short, we hope that everyone will take this issue into consideration. We have a timeline, as follows:
12th April: Vendor applications open.
30th April: Vendor applications close.
20th of May: Gifts must be completed.
25th of May: Gifts must be up in store, to be checked, though not for sale.
1st of June: Vendor Support Month starts
30th of June: Vendor Support Month ends. (Though the idea will live on!)
You can join the group 'Vendor Support Month' in search, at any time to keep up to date with any changes or progressions about this project. Vendor, supporter, or consumer is welcome to pariticipate, offer any advice, or simply speak their mind in a respectful manner.
If you would like to contact someone directly, the organizers are as listed:
Morrigan Denimore - Group Owner and Organizer
Yukio Ida - Co. Organizer
Please drop a notecard reguarding any issues, ideas, suggestions, or queries on being a vendor in the hunt or supporter.You can find more information and guidelines and applications in the 'for vendors' section of this website or in the notices section of the group ' Vendor Support Month'. We understand not everyone will agree, and we are perfectly fine with that! People have done a lot of work in the past to organize hunts. We are not against them. We just see an issue of too much of one thing not being good, and as we have said before, a balance MUST be made.
Thank you ever so much for your interest and future participation, should you so decide.
Please keep content creation alive in Second Life, and support your vendors.
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